Purple Skies is the story of many lives, both equine and changeling, that cross and culminate on the attack in Canterlot, where the sky was purple, until it shattered and came down.

In the badlands, a Southron spirit reflects on what he learned in his many years bound to a magical trap and on the day an equine stumbled upon where he had been trapped for hundreds of years.
For the first time in those years, his hopes for freedom were rekindled.
However, it quickly became apparent to him that freedom had a price; he couldn't leave the trap unless someone took his place, a course that went against all he had come to understand was right.